Mover & Shaker: Emilie Poteat; Senior Management Associate at Bridgewater Associates

By Cathie Ericson

As a sociologist by training, Emilie Poteat has learned that it’s simply a fact that things will work out when you stop trying so hard and get out of your own way.

“You have to continue to make pathways to a goal regardless of how many iterations there are and realize that you have to embrace the ability to admit failure, evaluate what could go better and try again,” she says.

An Ongoing Path to Self-Reflection

Poteat started her career in a non-traditional way, earning a PhD with a focus on economic sociology – researching how markets form and how companies function and evolve in markets. While she had initially thought she might pursue a future in academia, her wife suggested she work at one of the companies she was researching instead. She spoke to Goldman and ended up working in their transformation department where they were focusing on organizational design — looking at their operations and determining what could be improved and how they could learn from others in the marketplace.

When she was contacted by a venture capital firm in Philadelphia, she was intrigued at the prospect of occupying the operator seat as she had been looking into small companies that Goldman could invest in and had been seeing interesting businesses bubble up. She took the role, where she led a turnaround on an insurance company, splitting it into two and bringing it to profitability.
While it was challenging given all the dimensions, she found it fascinating and names it as one of the professional achievements she is most proud of. “Bringing that company to profitability was both exhilarating and terrifying,” she says, noting that the culture was poor which led employees to have low expectations. She worked on an all-encompassing change from business processes to product changes and interpersonal relationships, relishing the chance to drop down and look at a problem and then zoom up to the bigger picture.

And therefore she found herself at a crossroads when she finished that engagement, trying to decide if she wanted to continue operating companies, which combined her love for research with her proclivity to flipping companies around, or did she want to take some time to work on herself? Ultimately she decided to come to Bridgewater where she is focused on the systemization of management, while learning more about how she operates as a leader. “I am investing in myself by taking a role with a smaller scope, yet one that I know will help me be more impactful when I eventually step back into the operator position,” she says.
For now she believes that her time at Bridgewater will help show her strengths as well as flaws, as she works with a team who is poised to provide honest feedback.

Building Relationships as a Key to Success

After spending six years getting her PhD and teaching university classes, Poteat expected the corporate world to be cutthroat, but she has found it to be extremely humane. “It has been incredible to meet smart, hard-working, dedicated people who have gone out on a limb for me,” she says. As one example, she cites Johann Shudlick, then the head of the LGBT network at Goldman and now driving diversity at Bridgewater as the one who went to bat for her, finding out her goals and then taking the time to open doors by introducing her around the Street.

While she acknowledges the business world can be competitive, she finds there is still a camaraderie around it. “I’ve been happiest when I’ve helped others around me grow, and I’ve been able to make great friends and form strong relationships over the years,” she says, noting that academia involved more quiet work without that interplay.

As she reflects on those she admires, she says she finds herself noticing those who can objectively view themselves in the moment. “Yes, you have to consider your numbers and impact and how you effect change, but what I admire is people who are able to genuinely lead by understanding how their leadership style impacts the group.”

Always looking for those learning moments, Poteat cites one that has stuck with her. She relays how she had signed off on what ended up being a big bill, before she realized she had gone through the motions and pushed it forward without checking it carefully enough. “It ended up being impactful, and I should have verified that it wasn’t exactly what I thought it was,” she says, saying it helped her self-reflect on how her bent toward action orientation helped propel the blunder forward. “While this focus on action is generally a strength, it can be more of a hindrance when I pair it with bravado,” she says, noting that it’s important to always slow down and take that extra step. “I learned the importance of balancing confidence with humility, which I try to work on every day,” she says.

While Poteat knows that it can be hard for some people, she says that it would be impossible to her to not be out at work. And she’s found it to be a benefit to her career as it opened up relationships in affinity groups, as well as allowing her to help others on the personal front. In fact, in larger organizations she finds that the managers she had were quite proud she was on the team and that her different reality allows her to see the play on the field from a different vantage.

She and her wife share their life with two Golden Retrievers and love to travel. On the philanthropic fronts, they invest in LGBT-founded companies through angel investing with a group called Gaingels. Companies they support must have LGBT representation within the C-suite, and one of Poteat’s favorite parts is getting to meet the founders while providing economic empowerment.

In addition, she and her wife, along with her wife’s family, have established the Global Education Scholarship fund in memory of her wife’s brother who passed away when he was 31 from cancer. It supports students at Elon, particularly those who may have a chronic illness that might diminish their health quality. She says she always wants to emphasize that despite any life challenge, the timeline of your life remains separate from the value you bring to each moment.

“We underscore that it’s not the length of your life timeline, but the volume of the value you fit into your time,” she says, an ethos they themselves live by maximizing the value of every day.

/by

Voice of Experience: Melanie Tinto, Chief Human Resources Officer, WEX

By Cathie Ericson

Early in her career, a mentor asked WEX’ Melanie Tinto what she would do differently if she was a vice president, and she named a couple of things on her mind.

It was very eye opening when her mentor responded, “Why not operate like you’re already in the role that you want to be in? Why wait? Let people see you for the value you bring, and they’ll be thinking ‘I thought she already had that larger title.’” That is the type of advice that has helped Tinto rise within numerous companies to her current position today.

Finding Her Calling in HR

Tinto says she never thought of work as “work,” but rather something that brought her fulfilment, thus making her busy career a pleasure.

She had grown up in Maine but when she graduated, the market was not particularly robust, so she moved to Connecticut and worked for a finance company that put her in a leadership development program. She ended up with a rotation in HR and although she had planned to land in underwriting, she realized that HR was the right path for her, particularly in the recruiting and career development areas.

When the company was being acquired, she decided to make a move to Cigna that combined her loves of financing and HR. She was soon promoted to managing half the staff and went through some different departments, including product strategy, when she found herself at the tipping point where it was time to decide if she was going to stay in HR or go back to the business side. She ended up working in HR for a variety of companies of all sizes, mainly moving with bosses she admired. Over the years, she has been proud that she’s been able to play a role in developing talent and watching them blossom, with former team members who are now CHROs.

Tinto is happy now to be back with a smaller company where she appreciates the culture and tighter chemistry. And of course, she is delighted to be back to Maine.

In her new position at WEX, she’ll be focusing her attention on a variety of needs, but one of them is helping to ensure the diversity of staff. In addition she is focused on thinking ahead to how employees will want to work in the future and how the company can help retain them by offering a variety of work paths, such as short- and long-term assignments to keep them interested.

Also, now that she is in a different chapter of her career, she’s looking forward to expanding her work on advisory boards to deepen her roots by becoming more engaged in the community beyond her day-to-day work.

Benefitting from Mentors and Passing It On

Another lesson that stuck with Tinto from a mentor came from the military, “Completed Staff Work.” What that means is never put a problem in the lap of someone else; instead at least offer options and recommendations. “Find that extra step that differentiates you and helps your leader do his or her job better,” she advises. So for example, if you knew your boss was going to forward your email directly to the CEO, would you check it one more time for format or spelling? Then assume that might happen and do it.

She says that she feels so grateful for her career path that she is eager to bring others along. To that end, she says it’s important to remember to give credit to team members, which can help strengthen relationships.

Building those relationships has always been important to her. At a former employer she helped lead the women’s employee resource group and saw how impactful the outlet was as a way to remember not to just put your head down and work.

“Many of the women I met there are still my board of advisors,” she says, adding that she has known many of them since the ‘90s, which offers a vast network she can always ask for help or advice.

“Sometimes you need someone to hold a mirror up to you, and you have to be open to that feedback, which makes you better even when you don’t want it,” she says.

A Full Life With Family

Balance is important to Tinto, and she says she wishes she’d learned earlier in her career to carve out time for herself. “You have to take that hour, or leave work to take a vacation because often taking a break is a better way to be more effective.”

Now she enjoys spending time with her husband of 25 years and 13-year-old son and 10-year-old daughter. “I’m lucky because I’ve always felt very supported in terms of my career – even with all the craziness, we are a team that supports one another.”

Together they love to participate in a wide variety of activities, from camping to concerts to trips. One of their goals is to see every state in the country and they only have eight left. “I wouldn’t trade the memories we’ve made for anything,” she says.

The family is also busy with kids’ sports and traveling teams, particularly horses and lacrosse. And now that she is back in Maine, she is delighted to be able to spend Sunday dinners with the extended family.

/by

Mover & Shaker: Svetla Marinova, Vice President of Innovation, APG

Svetla MarinovaBy Cathie Ericson

“I always assumed that one needed to have studied a particular major in college in order to work in that industry, especially finance, but I have come to find that some of my most successful colleagues and classmates found their way into their respective industries by ‘falling into it’ in different ways,” says APG’s Svetla Marinova.

“I believe they are so good at what they do because their minds approach problems differently from the minds of their peers who have all been trained in the same traditional way, and they are valued for that very reason.”

Marinova’s creative career path certainly bears that out.

Seizing Opportunities Throughout Her Career

Marinova always thought she’d pursue academia and focused on preparing herself for a PhD in Economics, with a focus on Environmental Economics — even spending an extra year in college focusing on math, and then earning a Master’s degree in Climate & Society at Columbia straight after college. But when she eventually started her PhD, she realized a research career did not fit her energetic and outgoing personality.

“I wanted to be in a dynamic environment where my actions could effect change right away,” she says, deciding to join a consulting firm as a way to figure out what industry she might be drawn to. She joined what was at the time a startup called AlphaSights, now a 400+ employee firm, as the first female employee in their NYC team of 10.

After a year she fell into fintech, becoming the first employee of S&P Global’s Innovation Lab, where she developed an affinity for the field and the Lean Startup methodology as it applies to software development, particularly driven by an interest in deriving insights from data through data visualization.

While at S&P Global, she created a summer internship competition called Mission Possible, where interns form teams and act like startups, developing a product over two months. The competition culminates with a pitch before senior management who act like VCs; for four summers she oversaw the program with 50+ interns each summer. She also created more than a dozen proofs-of-concept with her S&P team, and initiated numerous initiatives meant to stir the organization into more creative thinking.

While there, Marinova also designed and product-managed a smart search tool at a time when natural language processing was in its infancy as applied to financial services. Within six months, her team had a cutting-edge product that they had built iteratively with zero prior experience in natural language processing and with limited resources.
“It was incredibly rewarding, and I learned that I’m capable of picking up any project and making it successful if I do the proper research and am given freedom and support to execute,” she notes. “I also taught myself to pick up the phone and ask for advice when I don’t know how to do something, which saves a lot of time and worries. Of course, being surrounded by top-notch engineers with the same can-do attitude was essential to our success.”

And, she learned that while her ideas were sometimes outside-the-box, and that not everyone was going to get them or love them immediately, there are opportunities and challenges in the fintech space that merit exactly that type of bold and unconventional thinking.

In an effort to learn more about data architecture, she spent two years working on strategic data sourcing initiatives at Deutsche Bank, where she co-led an employee resource group called Career360, a knowledge-exchange program between junior and senior employees. The program has grown significantly and exists in many countries around the world now.

During that time she began the Executive MBA program at the Wharton School of Business, a two-year program with the same curriculum as a full-time MBA, but with the caveat that all students also work full-time during the program. She graduated in May 2018, proud of her success at completing the intense program.

In addition to learning about finance, marketing, general management and entrepreneurship, she says she gained confidence and traveled the world with classmates on global knowledge trips to Japan, Argentina and Spain, to name a few, along the way meeting incredible people from a variety of industries and geographies.

She joined APG, the largest Dutch pension fund, in September 2017 as vice president and manager of innovation, where for now at least, she is again a one-woman show building out an innovation program for the New York office using the lessons learned from her Innovation colleagues in The Netherlands . This entails scouting out the fintech ecosystem for startups who could be potential strategic partners; coaching experiments or internal R&D projects aimed at delivering products and services for the pensioner of the future or aimed at improving the investment process; and creating and sustaining a culture of innovation via various internal initiatives from a speaker series to ideation sessions.

“I’m excited to be building cutting-edge tools for a company that believes in and supports innovation,” Marinova says. “I feel encouraged to explore ideas in the areas of fintech that truly interest me, such as artificial intelligence, blockchain, and sustainable investing.”

At the moment, she finds she’s most enthusiastic about their experiment with alternative data, which she researched thoroughly prior to designing by talking to industry peers, alternative data vendors, platform providers, internal investment experts and compliance professionals. “It’s a truly collaborative effort between our New York and Amsterdam offices, and I cannot wait to find out what we will learn from this experiment about how to tackle the growing volumes and types of data that are becoming available.”

A Full Life Inside and Outside of Work

Marinova participates in the APG U.S. Women’s Forum, which is an initiative that seeks to enhance careers by providing opportunities both within and outside APG to share information, strengthen skills and develop rewarding professional relationships. In addition, they seek to serve the broader community, especially in ways that have a positive impact on women and girls. For example in February, they raised money for the Young Women’s Leadership School, whose students visited the office for job shadowing, mock interviews and case coaching.

Starting with her first role model, her father, Marinova mentions that all of her mentors and managers thus far have been male, and she looks forward to the day when she will end up reporting to a woman she can look up to. “Unfortunately women are massively underrepresented in the fintech space, especially in senior roles,” she says, adding that she catches herself counting the number of females on panels or even in the audience at major fintech conferences. “I think it is slowly growing, but still remains within double or even single digits. I hope to change that.”

Outside of work, Marinova engages in a wide variety of hobbies, including travel, music, dabbling in arts, and reading – from books that help her retain her professional edge to fiction. She has served as a volunteer coach with FIRST Robotics and NFTE, where she taught entrepreneurship to high school students, and looks forward to re-engaging in her mentoring and volunteer activities after completing her MBA.

And all of her efforts are guided by an underlying principle: “Don’t cut corners when it comes to your personal effort — make things happen using the highest standards that you can think of,” she says. For her that manifests itself as thinking of every project as an opportunity to showcase existing skills and learn new ones. She’ll seek advice from online journals or others in her network, but isn’t afraid to make up her own way of doing something if she finds that nobody is doing it quite right. “When nobody has figured out the solution yet, that’s a great opportunity — this is how new products and processes are born out of a blank canvas,” she says.

Equally important to her is always maintaining integrity, and always being kind to everyone you meet along the way, eager to help others and to hear them out. “As Ray Dalio says, it’s essential to surround yourself with smart people who are not afraid to disagree with you — this brings us all closer to the truth.” “Being open to entertaining opposing views is how you create trust with people, and they will always remember if you’re someone who is willing to fight for the right thing,” she says. Not to mention, of course, that besides being a recipe for career success, it is also one for living a happy life and sleeping well at night.

/by

Voice of Experience: Jocelyn B. Redman, Counsel, Shearman & Sterling

Jocelyn B. RedmanBy Cathie Ericson

All different types of people can succeed at law firms, says Jocelyn Redman.

“Even if at first you don’t see people who look just like you or come from the same background, remember that you can succeed with different goals by leveraging your strengths and forging the career that works best for you.”

As A Shearman & Sterling “Lifer” She Finds the Career She Always Sought

Redman’s goal had always been to become a lawyer, but she felt that working in an office environment in another field would afford her a useful perspective on her career. She spent her first four years out of college working on energy and environmental policy analysis, and then went to law school. While earning her law degree at American University’s Washington College of Law, she joined the firm as a summer associate and has been there ever since, and was promoted to Counsel effective as of March 1.

Redman started at Sherman & Sterling in the finance group in New York City, joined the real estate practice after two years and relocated to the Washington, D.C. office in 2014. She works with her colleagues in New York and London, handling issues such as acquisitions and dispositions, joint ventures and leasing; she particularly enjoys matters involving Washington D.C. real estate given how hot real estate development is currently in that city.

“I’m always working with clients to suggest avenues that can guard against the tendency toward a boom-and-bust cycle,” she says, adding that the D.C. market is particularly appealing for investments – the continuous needs of the government can protect against the typical harsh fall that the real estate industry as a whole can have when markets turn. “We are always looking to tap alternative resources and be aware of trade-offs and how to protect our clients’ investments.”

Using Diversity As A Tool For Success

Over the years, Redman has found that participation in Shearman & Sterling’s WISER (Women’s Initiative for Success, Excellence and Retention) group has been useful as a way to get to know women partners and counsel from other specialty groups. She’s also found the “Lean In” circles to be applicable, particularly one module about body language that helped participants become more aware of the unintended messages they might inadvertently be sending through their presentation and carriage.

She believes that being a woman in the legal field can be a benefit, since clients are looking for diversity and differing perspectives in their legal teams. In fact, she finds that one of the biggest barriers for women in the legal field – especially at law firms – can be perception, rather than reality.

“I find that women worry that a legal career might take all your time, and that the only type of person who can succeed are those who put everything else aside,” she says. “And that in itself can cause women to self-select out, or decide they should take on a smaller role, when in reality those steps are not necessary and can just result in women lawyers taking jobs where they are being paid less and have less opportunity to grow in their careers.”

She cautions women not to assume you have to give your entire life to your career or play into the notion that success requires constant sacrifice. Unfortunately, she sees lawyers who perpetuate the stereotype by contributing to the myth that you can never have your weekends free or take vacations. “I am still learning to balance,” she says, “but there are ways to have hobbies and a family and be successful at your job.”

With a young daughter herself, Redman is learning to focus on other priorities outside of work while still providing excellent legal services to her clients on behalf of her firm. “Some of this ability to balance comes from maturing in your job,” she points out. In fact, traveling is another priority and over the years she has taken three trips to Africa with her mom.

/by

Voice of Experience: Jennifer Barbetta | Partner, Goldman Sachs

,

Jennifer BarbettaBy Cathie Ericson

“Be on the short list,” recommends Jennifer Barbetta, a partner in Goldman Sachs’ Investment Management Division.

From her own experience, she knows that unique and challenging projects don’t simply “fall in front of you,” and that when senior managers are kicking off a new business, they’ll look to add people to their team who offer both a specific skill set as well as those with whom they have built a relationship.

As such, she advises junior analysts and associates to be “willing to work hard at everything put in front of you,” because individuals who jump in to solve problems and also work on building honest, trusting relationships are rewarded. “When people think of someone they want to work with, you want it to be you,” she recommends.

Creating a Multi-Faceted Career

And being someone with that mindset contributed to how Barbetta has managed to enjoy such a fruitful and varied career at Goldman Sachs. She joined the firm directly after graduating college, assuming she would work at the firm for several years prior to pursuing an MBA or law degree. Fast forward 23 years, and she’s still enjoying her work at Goldman Sachs, having worked in a variety of different roles across businesses.

Today, Barbetta is helping to lead the Global Portfolio Solutions Group in Goldman Sachs Asset Management (GSAM), which provides custom asset allocation advice, risk management and portfolio construction to both institutional and retail clients. The business has steadily expanded its service offerings over the past few years, resulting in GSAM becoming one of the top providers globally.

The custom solutions-oriented offering is one with a lot of potential, Barbetta says, noting that the work GSAM is doing was referenced in Goldman Sachs’ annual letter to shareholders as an effort with significant growth potential. That’s partially because trends in the industry are aligned with the business’ growth, as pension plans or healthcare organizations look for greater expertise in generating investment returns, because they may not have the breadth of internal capability to support all asset classes, portfolio construction and asset liability analysis. In other cases, they may be looking to outsource this functionality to save costs. “What we offer is so customized yet we have the expertise, investment platforms and risk management tools to scale this work effectively.”

“There is clearly a trend in this space, and at Goldman Sachs, we feel we have the skills sets, scale and resources to deliver for our clients,” Barbetta notes. “We have a diverse and experienced team, and we have significantly added to our capabilities over the past several years.”

Proud to be Part of A Firm That Embraces Diversity

Barbetta notes that as women progress in their careers, firms experience difficulty promoting and retaining senior women as they begin to start families. “It becomes more of a balancing act, and I know there’s more we can all do to enhance flexibility,” she says.

She also finds it uniquely beneficial to be out at work, primarily because you can take energy that you might have spent covering up a part of who you are and redirect it to a more useful need. She is proud to be associated with Goldman Sachs, and notes that the firm focuses on building an inclusive culture, with the tone being set at the top.

“If someone feels confident that senior management gets it, it makes it that much more comfortable to be out at work,” she notes. For Barbetta, a defining moment came when Goldman Sachs CEO Lloyd Blankfein spoke out in support of marriage equality in 2011, highlighting to both employees and the public that he supports diversity.

Involved with the LGBT network since it was founded in 2001, Barbetta now serves as an advisor, and during Pride Month will be moderating a panel on embracing transgender talent. She also is active in Goldman Sachs’ women’s network, having championed strategic initiatives focused on high-performing women. She also has been involved with the Black network and led a mentoring cohort that worked with managing directors and vice presidents.

Barbetta has three children with her wife Victoria, and when not spending time with family, she is active in philanthropic organizations. For almost a decade, she’s been on the board of the Point Foundation, which offers scholarships and mentoring to LGBTQ students of merit. She is also on the board of Junior Achievement New York, where she recently helped host a Bowlathon that raised almost $300,000. In addition, she is a board member at her children’s school.

/by

Voice of Experience: Francesca Harris, Business Development Manager, PwC UK

,

Francesca Harris

By Cathie Ericson

“Know your worth, and keep striving for where you want to be compared to where you are,” says Francesca Harris.

She advises tapping the knowledge of the people and talent that is all around to develop yourself further. “Find someone you can reach out to who has already arrived where you hope to be and seek their advice and support to see how they got there,” she says.

Over the years she has realized the power of reaching out to people who are more senior than yourself and investing time in those relationships, rather than being intimidated by who they are.

“Be fearless and take risks,” she says. “You can never be wrong trying to do something right so run with it, and there will always be people there to support you.

A D&I Pioneer

Harris started her career in London in the online digital space, primarily in the music and entertainment industry. It was a similar skill set as business development, and after four years she accepted a job offer from PwC and moved to Birmingham where she currently focuses on the private business market and growing client portfolios. Each day is a fascinating mix of helping businesses conquer a challenge or entrepreneurs who are working toward getting to the next level.

But the professional achievement of which she is most proud is her recent honor as Barclays Diversity Champion DIVA 2018. “When I saw the short list, I was amazed at the heavy hitters and outstanding women who had been nominated so it was a complete surprise when I was named the winner,” she says.

Over the past few years, diversity and inclusion has been her “pet project” that she has worked to drive forward by building connections among friends and colleagues. Harris is also a very active PwC GLEE ambassador – PwC’s LGBT+ internal network, headed up by PwC partner Brian Ashmead-Siers established to drive equal representation.While there is still much to be done, she is proud of the progress that has been made and the work that PwC is doing in particular. One new initiative centers on the pay gap and the firm’s move toward a 50/50 short list for each positon, meaning which an equal gender split will be considered.

She also is active in external networks such as the Midlands Alliance Network that she and other corporate colleagues have built over the past three years, and LB Women, which is focused on lesbian and bisexual women.

While it can sometimes feel as though there’s a double glass ceiling, she is encouraged that people are routinely breaking through that barrier, and she knows that past generations probably had it a lot harder. “People’s behaviors around inclusivity are changing for the better, and now it’s important to continue to be visible so others can be educated on the challenges that they might not realize exist,” she says.

And of course as diversity and inclusion improve at a rapid rate, she looks forward to how far it can progress so the next generation won’t have to deal with the same issues.

Out and Proud

Harris finds that being out has helped her build better relationships because when you are closeted, there is a lot of your life that people don’t see and can’t understand. “You’re always frightened you will slip up and share things you don’t want to, so you tend to be more closed off,” she says. But when you’re just meeting someone and can feel free to share personal details, it adds a level of trust to that relationship right away.

She also appreciates that she can be a role model for others, even sometimes from afar. When you are open and visible about who you are, others who may be struggling can see that and say “She’s doing it and seems to be ok, and maybe I will too.”
“Even if you never interact with them, you can be a lighthouse that offers that level of comfort,” Harris notes. She says that she occasionally mentors people who are frightened they won’t be accepted as being out, so she urges them to realize they will always be able to find a support system. “The most important thing you can do is be yourself; in fact you can’t be successful without it,” she says.

And she finds it beneficial on the client side to show that the firm has diverse people and therefore is apt to offer better, more-rounded solutions.

“Once you take everyone’s strengths, the whole becomes better. Why would you have a team that all thinks the same,” she wonders.

Harris relaxes by painting, and an avid traveler, she will soon head to South America. But to her, family is most critical, and she is over the moon proud that she has just found out she is soon to be an aunt.

/by

Voice of Experience: Stephanie Smith, Executive Vice President and Marketing COO, Wells Fargo

,

Stephanie SmithBy Cathie Ericson

Success in your career can be determined by your network, which is why women can’t overlook the importance of building and maintaining relationships — not just in your company or department, but across a broad swath of the industry.

“Like many women, at the start of my career, I was very heads down on my work as I sought to perform at a high level,” says Wells Fargo’s Stephanie Smith. “While I created relationships in my company, I learned over the course of my career how critical it is to have those relationships across an industry, whether you’re trying to build a team or benchmark best practices.”

Capturing the Opportunities Available in Marketing

Currently Smith is COO for Wells Fargo Marketing, and her goal is to create a world-class marketing organization within Wells Fargo. The domain is vast, as marketing is a centralized enterprise function that supports every business in the company, as well as digital marketing and other functions.

Before moving into this role, Smith had spent a decade in leadership roles in digital channels at Wells Fargo and Bank of America, where she oversaw the online banking and electronic payments functions as well as digital marketing and sales.
Before joining the corporate world, Smith had been a political appointee in the Clinton administration, where she was the General Deputy Assistant Secretary for Housing; prior to that she had worked with national and regional non-profits that focused on affordable housing and community development.

While her career has encompassed very different assignments, Smith says that the connective tissue among all her positions has been her passion for thinking about how capitalism can help working- and middle-class Americans achieve their goals.
While it’s hard to choose just one professional achievement across a career that spans so many domains, Smith says that she is most proud of the role she has had in building high-performing teams no matter where she was.

Today she sees a number of opportunities and challenges, as the function of marketing is changing rapidly due to the impact of technology, as is every part of the business world.

Smith finds herself most excited about the work Wells Fargo is doing to apply robotic process automation, artificial intelligence, agile methodology and process reengineering to make marketing functions more efficient and effective. These new capabilities that are coming to market fit well with her background, which has been focused on the intersection of determining how you best serve customers and their financial needs using technology, along with the impact of digital technology on every aspect of marketing, including creating customized experiences.

In the operational centers of marketing, she sees that digital technology and automation are streamlining work that used to be highly manual. “Even five years ago we had a smaller set of capabilities to work with; the acceleration brought on by the expansion of marketing technology has been so constant,” Smith notes.

Seeing Diversity Across the Organization

Over the years, Smith has seen that women are given fewer opportunities for stretch assignments — partially because they aren’t offered to them as much, but also because women don’t tend to ask for them as often as men. She attributes this to women’s propensity to feel like they have to be 100 percent ready for a role before taking it, whereas men feel like they need to about 50 percent ready.

“I often share the message with young women that they don’t have to know everything on day one,” Smith says. She adds that mastering a steep learning curve will contribute to your competency and your career, supplemented by asking for support when you need it.

She relays one of her favorite pieces of advice, shared by her boss in her first job out of graduate school where she was developing affordable housing: “You don’t have to have all the answers; you just have to know the questions to ask,” which she has found helpful in a variety of new roles and challenges.

In addition she urges women not to assume that their work will speak for itself and get duly recognized since the reality is that you have to do the great work, but promote it as well. She appreciates when women in senior roles promote the work of other women, a strategy that is even more important in support of women of color.

Smith has been “out” at work as a lesbian since she left college, but acknowledges that it’s been a distinct advantage to live and work for most of her career in the accepting Bay Area. “For many others in the corporate environment, they may not have the benefit of geographic location as I do.”

Being out allows her to bring her whole self to work and not worry about expending energy on hiding her sexual orientation or her family, which makes her a better leader and team member. She also enjoys being an advocate for others as she knows how important it is to see people who are like you in the senior ranks.

As the former executive advisor to the LGBTQ employee group at Wells Fargo for a number of years, she has been proud to help lead productive discussions surrounding how the company can best support team members.

As an example, Wells Fargo’s decision to sign on to the amicus brief in support of the 2015 Supreme Court case on freedom to marry (Obergefell v. Hodges) was important, as it underscored that Wells Fargo is a company that supports the rights of its LGBTQ team members and customers. She finds this open support, combined with equal benefits for team members in same-sex relationships, to be an asset in attracting and retaining employees, and goes to the heart of Wells Fargo’s values of diversity and inclusion.

A Values-Driven Personal Life

With 17- and 15 year-old daughters, Smith and her wife structure their non-work time around their kids in a values-based way. The first is voluntarism, and they work together as a family at several homeless programs on a monthly basis; the second is education and they volunteer at the girls’ schools, which allows them to support education while also being around their daughters. And finally, they value cultural experiences so they frequently travel internationally as a family. “We structure our time around these three dimensions, which both lets us reinforce what we value as a family and gives us meaningful time with our children.”

/by

Voice of Experience: Corinne Heyes, HR Director for the Americas at Barclays

Corinne Heyes

By Cathie Ericson

Taking a risk is worth the reward, says Corinne Heyes, who knows firsthand the benefits.

In fact, as a naturally risk-averse person, she has nonetheless managed her career that way successfully, in a manner she terms “opportunistic, but safe.”

When she recently took a risk late in her career by changing firms after 16 years and assuming a much larger role, she says it was the best decision of her career. “My 19 months at Barclays have been challenging, energizing and stimulating — I’m having fun working with a team of smart, dedicated and motivated HR professionals,” she says.

The Road That Led Her There

Heyes graduated from Dartmouth College with a BA in Psychology in 1982 and started her professional career as a financial underwriter for Aetna Life and Casualty. The work entailed using claim experience and actuarial formulas to price group insurance products, such as employee benefits plans for large clients that included corporations like American Express and trade associations like the Securities Industry Association (SIA).

After a couple of years in Aetna’s Hartford home office, she asked to be transferred to the sales and servicing office in New York City, where she would keep her same accounts but move into a direct client service role. The largest member of the SIA was Wertheim & Co., a small, privately held investment bank and after serving as its account representative for two years, Wertheim asked her to join the firm to launch its benefits department.

Over the subsequent 11 years, she received an MBA in Finance from NYU’s Stern School and picked up the compensation function to complement her benefits role. The firm had changed names several times — from Wertheim to Wertheim Schroder to Schroders, and in 2000, Citigroup acquired Schroders, and Heyes joined the investment bank to manage the compensation team.

Over 16 years at Citi, she acquired additional businesses in her compensation management portfolio and for the last six years ran the compensation practice for the entire institutional side of Citi. She joined Barclays in October 2016 as the Director of HR and Rewards, Americas, where she now oversees the delivery of the full suite of HR services, including compensation and benefits.

In addition to that role, Heyes is a member of the U.S. Executive Committee for the Bank Holding Company Barclays has established in the United States, which has its own independent board and relationship with U.S. regulators like the Fed.

Culture as a Driver of Firm Success

For Heyes, one of the best parts of her job is helping define and promote the firm culture. “The challenge starts with defining your desired culture in words,” she says, noting that at Barclays, the culture is underpinned by its five values — respect, integrity, service, excellence and stewardship. But to drive the desired culture, firms need to be able to measure evolution in a consistent, replicable way. To that end, Barclays has developed a culture dashboard that includes qualitative and quantitative metrics that they measure quarterly, which enables them to track the culture over time and design strategies to address any area of opportunity.

This type of action is very topical in the financial services industry, she says, with firms focused on defining, measuring and driving culture. But that’s not all. “Our regulators are keenly interested in culture as an asset which mitigates misconduct risk,” she points out, adding that the Fed published a white paper which advanced the concept of “cultural capital” as an asset that can act as a loss mitigator by influencing decisions, behaviors and outcomes over time. And even though it is an intangible asset, the fact that its impact can be measured, assessed and influenced means it is an important one.

Firms must invest in cultural capital in the same way they invest in other forms of capital, like physical, human or reputational capital, or they will deteriorate over time and adversely impact a firm’s productivity, adding that Barclays shares this sentiment regarding cultural capital.

And the commitment to cultural capital extends throughout the organization down to programs that promote diversity and inclusiveness. Tone from the top is critical in establishing D&I as a central tenet to a firm’s mission, but the words are only given credence through real actions and programs. For example, at Barclays they have introduced gender-neutral paid child care leave and have championed dynamic working, which encourages employees to define the individual work arrangement that best integrates their professional and personal lives.

Heyes also has experienced the firm’s inclusiveness with no hesitation in being out at work. “You often hear the phrase ‘bring your whole self to work,’ which underscores the concept that authenticity frees up discretionary energy, enabling you to engage more powerfully,” she says.

“For those in the LBGT+ community who are in the closet at work, it’s not simply that they are choosing to leave behind certain discretionary aspects of their lives, but rather they are actively hiding this very elemental aspect of their personhood.” And while that puts up barriers to being able to connect fully with one’s colleagues, even more critically, it is intellectually, emotionally and spiritually exhausting to maintain a facade every minute of the workday.

And she knows this exhaustion firsthand, because she was not out for the 11 years she worked at Schroders. It wasn’t until she moved to Citi and decided that to be open with her colleagues that she realized how liberating it was not to be guarded in her daily interactions. She found her colleagues to be very supportive, and in fact, it quickly became unremarkable.

When she and her wife married in November 2013 after DOMA was overturned — on their 23rd “anniversary!” – her team threw them a surprise wedding shower. And she adds, she believes it is important to be seen as a senior LGBT role model.

A Fulfilling Personal Life That Includes Giving Back to Others

Despite her many professional achievements, the accomplishment Heyes is most proud of so far is much more personal. Through a firm program, Heyes mentored a high school student for her junior and senior years — the pair went to museums, plays and sporting events and spent countless hours discussing everything from current events, to their respective families and how to conduct a college search.

“While on paper we seemed quite different, we developed an easy-going relationship and discovered our commonalities,” Heyes says. “I feel very strongly that we have an obligation to the next generation, particularly those from disadvantaged backgrounds.” In fact, at Barclays, she has also engaged with Cristo Rey, a high school in East Harlem that offers students the chance to work with corporate partners as a core experiential learning component. Last year they contracted for one student one day a week, and are looking to expand their commitment to five for the upcoming school year.

Heyes also sits on the board of “Find the Courage,” a nonprofit that runs youth programs designed to inspire, educate and empower young people to be positive leaders by promoting respect, kindness, inclusion and resiliency in their communities. And for fun she enjoys reading, gardening, photography and travel, and as she says, “I’m a total sports junkie.”

/by

Voice of Experience: Beth Brooke-Marciniak, Global Vice Chair of EY

,

Beth Brooke-MarciniakBy Cathie Ericson

When Beth Brooke-Marciniak first started her career, she found she was intensely focused on the job at hand, rather than paying special attention to building relationships along the way.

But she soon learned the importance of building those by giving to others. “If your relationships are built based on what you can do for the other person, it’s like putting pennies in the bank, and there will be a cumulative effect later in your career,” she says.

Finding an Intersection between Business and Public Service

Beth always urges young women to find a place where they can experience an entrepreneurial culture and have the chance to advance on their own merits. “In a firm like mine, you can take as much responsibility as you can handle, which is an environment that is particularly suited for women who can take control and go all in with good sponsors and mentors. The key is figuring out life as it comes, rather than anticipating issues and standing back waiting to be tapped.”

Brooke-Marciniak has spent nearly four decades at EY, except for a brief stint in public service during the Clinton administration. She started her career in the Indianapolis office in the auditing department, but soon segued to the tax practice. She relocated to D.C. to run the insurance tax practice, and it was in that capacity that she was known to the Clinton administration. They were interested in the unique blend of experience she had gained working on healthcare clients since managed care was new at the time and the tax policy was confusing.

She said she would give two years which she says were a fascinating journey “on the front lines of the legislative experience in a great administration that was trying to change the world.”

During that time, she found there was often a disconnect in how business and government worked together. She realized that the world needed someone with the patience and diplomatic skills to figure out where CEOs were coming from on issues and what society needed — and join them.

It was with that vision that Brooke-Marciniak sat down with EY executives and told them that she didn’t want to go back to the tax practice. The chairman invited her to come back to be part of the senior team, even though her role and title weren’t yet clearly defined. She trusted his word and was soon immersed in strategy work, until the Enron situation happened, shaking public trust and confidence in the industry’s work. She knew that the field needed to build a long-term effort to restore credibility, and she took on the task of leading the profession through those changes.

“I’m proud of how far we’ve come and how we pulled together after Enron and worked cooperatively with our competitors on matters of public policy to restore the industry,” she says.

Beth continues to see society looking to business to fill the gaps being left by government, yet noticing there remains some reticence to trusting business fully. And, business has to work hand in hand with government incentives that must be in place. “Business will do what’s in its self-interest, and we can’t solve everything, but by working together diplomatically all of society will benefit,” she says.

Embracing Differences Publicly

As proud as she is of her professional achievements, not much can match the impact of her coming out, which was far from ordinary. She had been asked as an ally to help with a video designed to reach teens who were contemplating suicide. But when she started filming it, she realized she didn’t want to stay in her role of “straight ally,” but wanted to be honest about who she was. “It just poured out of me: I wanted to tell these teens they are valuable because they’re different, not in spite of it,” she says.

And Brooke-Marciniak knows how it feels to be different. First, she was one of few women in a profession where her politics were different than most of her colleagues, Furthermore, she was an introvert in a sea of extroverts. “Although these qualities all made me feel very different, EY embraced me. I never felt unwelcome or excluded, and I realized that I was very lucky to work for this organization where I was valued for my differences. That was my ‘aha moment’ — that everyone is different and feels different.”

At that moment, when she came out, she says that her world went from black and white to life in full color. Once you are living an authentic life, colleagues can now engage you as a whole person, and you can be a whole leader, she says. And she adds, it’s even more challenging to be a closeted introvert because it feels dangerous to engage people one on one. “I was seen more as a loner and aloof which wasn’t true at all,” she says.

At EY, she has been instrumental in starting a global LGBT partner group and she works behind the scenes with the World Economic Forum on the LGBT agenda. “Social bias is an intractable process, but we are making headway,” she says.
However, these ongoing challenges underscore why Brooke-Marciniak shares with younger professionals that her best advice is to pay attention to the culture you are joining. “Anyone can learn what you need to learn, but if the culture doesn’t work, you’ll self-select out or they’ll kick you out,” she says, noting that cultures are not created equally. For her part, EY has been the perfect fit since all ideas are welcome and challenging the status quo is encouraged. “Our culture appreciates that better decisions are made through different ideas,” she says.

Brooke-Marciniak first knew her wife as a business colleague – neither of them knew one another was gay at the time they met. When the Wall Street Journal ran a story about the lack of gay CEOs and profiled Beth, her now-wife came to her and said she was closeted and wanted to discuss the struggle and risks. They had dinner to talk it through and the rest, as they say, is history — they now live happily ever after with two cats and two dogs.

/by

Mover and Shaker: Virgen Tracey, Senior Team Leader, WEX

Virgen TraceyBy Cathie Ericson

Knowing and understanding that it’s ok to take risks because that’s how you will grow and learn has helped forge a successful career path for WEX’ Virgen Tracey.

She is quick to point out that there’s never a dumb or perfect idea, and just because you’ve been somewhere longer, it doesn’t mean you have all the answers. In fact, the best ideas often come from fresh thinking.

“I always tell my team that you can’t learn if you don’t make mistakes, and it’s true for me, too. Realizing that the next time I’ll better know what to do has allowed me to grow in my career and as a person,” she says.

For Tracey that 20 years of growth has brought a thriving career at WEX as a leader, taking on diverse roles within the contact center that have allowed her to conquer a new challenge every day.

“Being able to take risks in my role has been a huge learning point for me. We think outside the box every day, not only from a professional standpoint, but as a rapid-growth company, we must be able to embrace change,” she says. Tracey credits her ability to lead by example, to “walk the walk,” as a key force for building credibility and trust and having a followership that has made her a successful team leader.

Leading the Contact Center To Success

Joining WEX fresh out of college, Tracey knew she would have to work hard, but also learn to be open to change to make the most of the startup environment. And, at the forefront of her mind was the realization that the company had earned a great deal of respect and customer trust that they would deliver excellent service, and her role was to stand by those ideals. She appreciates that she has been there throughout the growth of the company, fulfilling her belief that her hard work would pay off.
Right now, she’s excited to be working on supporting with implementation of the Salesforce service cloud application into the contact center. They are currently piloting it with 50+ employees across the organization, and she says it has been a game changer for how it’s going to increase efficiencies and gives insight into how to better support the customer to provide a better agent and customer experience. “Using this tool allows us to increase the information we have at our fingertips, directing us to what we need to change and enhance for better employee customer satisfaction and efficiency.”

After the full roll-out to more than 130 employees in the South Portland contact center, she will then support with spearheading the roll-out in the contact center in Ogden, focusing on ensuring the impact is minimal.

Mentors Lead the Way

To Tracey, a role model is someone she can look up to, but is also a mentor who can provide support and feedback to help her grow based on what they’ve seen in their interactions.

Over the years she says she has been honored to work with many successful individuals who have helped show her the ropes, in both IT and leadership roles. “If I wanted to know how others got to where they are today, I had to seek out the opportunities to network and find mentors,” she says. She credits a willingness to being open to listening to their stories about the best practices that worked for them and how they got on the path that led them to their end result of success.

And now she is focused on being a role model to others, taking what she’s learned by seeking out opportunities to learn from others and sharing that knowledge. “I can’t wait for the moment that I report to many of my team members whom I have helped nurture to a place of leadership,” she says.

Currently she is part of the pilot of WEX’ mentoring program where she is paired with a mentee, which has helped give her confidence and also will expose her entire team tåo the many benefits of formal mentorship to encourage new styles and ways of thinking.

Melding a Busy Professional and Personal Life

With three kids, ages 6, 15 and 19, there is never a dull moment, particularly when travel softball is part of the picture. “I love watching my 15 year old daughter play, and notice her development and how she gives 100 percent on and off the field. It’s such an inspiration as a work ethic,” Tracey says, noting that watching her hard work and openness to coaching is a lesson she herself can bring back to work.

Aside from giving “200 percent” to work, which has paid off in being tapped for her fifth upcoming President’s Club, Tracey always takes time to be present in her family life…but admits with a laugh that she also will never turn down a trip for shoe shopping. Most importantly she loves spending time with her husband and kids and enjoying any free time they have together.

/by